Steve Bisson/Savannah Morning News - Ken Coggins at the weightlifting center at the Willcox-Wiley Gym Complex at Savannah State University.

One voice can be heard time and again over the metal rattle of free weights and bench presses. That’s the voice of Ken Coggins, Savannah State University’s first full-time strength and conditioning coach for all sports.

Coggins is a motivator with drill sergeant discipline. A fiery cheerleader without the bullhorn.

“I’m an old-school guy,” Coggins said. “I believe you roll up your sleeves and go to work and you do old-school training and you play for overtime.

“It has to be intense every day. It’s fourth-and-inches, all day, every day, and you have to live life like that.”

Coggins couldn’t be more old-school if he wore a gray sweatshirt with the lettering “COACH” while dangling a whistle around his neck. He’s a behind-the-scenes guy, a guy who’s making everyone stronger — a missing ingredient for SSU players, football coach Earnest Wilson says. The Tigers’ weight room is nestled in the back of campus, behind the school bookstore in a building nearly 100 years old.

That’s just how the Mississippi native likes it.

He remembers playing for Mississippi State, where the Bulldog football team bought into coach Emory Bellard’s system in the 1980s. MSU beat top-ranked Alabama in 1980. Two of Coggins’ teams advanced to bowls.

“You had a chance to be part of something special,” said Coggins, who pulled a hamstring during his senior year and spent his final year of eligibility helping in the Bulldogs’ weight room.

Now, he wants to make Savannah State better than average.

“It’s what you need if you’re going to have a Division I program,” Wilson said. “You need that extra edge.”

Higher calling

During the last 29 years, Coggins molded a resume filled with building strength programs. At Belhaven University, one of his many stops, he led athletes from the basement of a dorm.

He says among the notable athletes he’s helped train are linebacker/defensive end Alfred Williams of the Denver Broncos, Olympic skier Picabo Street and NBA point guard Derek Fisher.

Before getting the SSU job, Coggins worked as the strength coach for Georgia State University’s new football program under coach Bill Curry.

When Curry left, Coggins, without a job, decided to look at an opening at Southeastern University in Lakeland, Fla.

While interviewing at Southeastern, he received a call from Savannah State.

“In my heart I knew something was going to happen,” Coggins said.

Then he got a not-so-subtle nudge from his daughter, Lauren, who was accompanying him to Lakeland.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Coggins recalled Lauren saying. “You’re supposed to be at a place like Savannah State University. You need to go and change the culture and be a part of something big.”

Coggins looked into the job and called a friend, Lester Walls, who worked with Wilson at Jackson State.

“(Walls) said you guys would be a good fit,” Coggins said.

A week before the 2013 season, Coggins took over at Savannah State.

Work ahead

Savannah State’s football season-opener might have been a preview of the work ahead. The Tigers trailed powerful Georgia Southern only 7-0 after the first quarter, but surrendered 49 points in the second half en route to a 77-9 loss.

A lack of strength and conditioning was evident.

“There was a time in that football game when we looked at each other and laughed,” Wilson said. “We thought the next couple of years are going to be a dogfight.”

SSU won only one football game in 2013. It was the fourth straight one-win season.

“It just makes such a difference. You really find out who’s in shape in the fourth quarter,” said SSU linebacker Justin Dixon. “Football’s physical. That’s what it comes down to. That’s the main part of the game. That’s what (Coggins) is selling.”

Wilson sees a difference already as the team finished spring workouts in preparation for the 2014 season.

“Ken’s making the kids more accountable,” Wilson said. “A Division I program needs a strength coach working with the kids 12 months of the year. That’s when you’re going to have success.”

Coggins has experienced that success. Northeast Louisiana won a Division I-AA national championship “beating a lot of teams simply by what we did in the weight room,” he said.

“You love young people up,” Coggins said. “You have to explain to them why you’re doing what you’re doing because there’s just one way — it’s work hard all day, every day.”